War Zone Doctors Fight Horror, Death With Sex, Booze: Interview

By Zinta Lundborg -
Jun 5, 2010

“I want to help the patient,” says
the doctor after examining a woman in terrible pain and
considering his limited resources. “But I don’t want to be her
executioner.”

The veteran surgeon from Tennessee was on his first mission
to Liberia with Medecins Sans Frontieres or Doctors Without
Borders. In treating the world’s most desperate people, each MSF
doctor has to make this kind of call many times a day.

Founded in France in 1971, MSF provides aid in more than 60
countries to people suffering the effects of war, epidemics and
natural disasters. The group received the Nobel Peace Prize in
1999.

Mark Hopkins’s new film, “Living in Emergency,” follows
four MSF physicians working in Liberia and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, two war-ravaged African countries.

After its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, “Living in
Emergency” opens in select U.S. cities today before wider
distribution later this month.

We spoke at Bloomberg world headquarters in New York.

Lundborg: When the doctors patch up a girl who was shot
during a massacre of her entire family, they don’t hold out much
hope for her future, nor is there any expectation of justice.
How do they cope with endless, impotent rage?

Cowboys

Hopkins: The doctors who can live in the field are the ones
who can get over that and really focus on what they can fix and
not get too bummed out over the bigger context.

It’s hard to face the fact that you’re not changing the
world.

Lundborg: Are they cowboys and adrenaline junkies?

Hopkins: They’re the Special Forces of the humanitarian
world. They thrive on intense situations and when these people
go back home, everything seems flat and boring.

They also have a good time, which is difficult for people
to understand. It’s all facets of the human experience and
everything is supercharged: work, friendship, fun, sorrow.

Lundborg: There are scenes of the doctors getting drunk and
the head of mission recommending frequent sex as an antidote to
death. How often do they get a chance to kick back?

Hopkins: Every night, unless you’re a surgeon on call. What
tends to happen is that at six in the morning, everyone hammers
into the hospital, works their guts out, and when it gets dark
and there are no more patients, it’s back to the bunker. Often
there’s a military curfew.

You have dinner and drinks and whatever.

Lundborg: Susan Sontag wrote in “On Regarding the Pain of
Others” that images of atrocities can produce conflicting
responses. How did you select what you show and what you don’t
show?

They Matter

Hopkins: You see a very small fraction of what the doctors
experienced in terms of medical intensity, but it was important
to show enough so that people understand something of the
environment and the stakes involved.

Not all patients make it. It’s intense because it’s real.

Lundborg: No matter how tough you are, burnout is
inevitable?

Hopkins: Your life and your work are pretty much the same
thing. If you’re on the front lines, about 10 years is what most
people can do before the horror gets to them.

Lundborg: You show a young doctor who can’t cope with the
conditions essentially freaking out.

Hopkins: He was out of his depth, and it was not entirely
his fault. At 26, he was the first doctor there in 15 years, and
the road got cut off by rain, so what had been a half-hour car
ride to the next town became a seven-hour slog.

He really lost it and started to make medical compromises
that were unacceptable.

Lundborg: What was the response of the patients to the
filming?

Somali Pirates

Hopkins: The patients and their families really wanted us
to record what was going on. Instead of being ignored and left
to die, they felt that here were people who valued their
suffering.

Lundborg: What’s your next project?

Hopkins: I’m looking at making a Somali pirate film. My
house in Kenya is actually on the beach 200 miles from the
Somali border, and I grew up knowing these guys all my life.

(Zinta Lundborg is a writer for Muse, the arts and leisure
section of Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.
This interview was adapted from a longer conversation.)